January 24, 2015

Two weeks ago at this secret spot, the lobsters were so plentiful, divers were limiting on their first dive within ten minutes.

I grabbed a spot on the Island Diver for a scheduled Saturday night deep lobster dive.

Kathy M. was the Dive Master; Donna The Hot Biker Chick, Famous Polish Diver Mirek, Mean Bob, Roger and Chris G. were the other divers.

I was planning on doing one dive, limiting quickly during the brief bottom time and returning with my first limit of the year.

We made a quick dart out to the secret spot.

I was diving dry.

I was debating whether I should go dry or wet; I really didn’t want the distraction of a dry suit while lobster hunting.

However, my wet suit has such a large hole in the ass, and we were going deep, so dry it was.

Mirek was going to do one long technical dive, everyone else was sticking to recreational limits.

Mirek’s rebreather.

I was the first diver over board; I swam to the anchor and descended.

Logged SCUBA Dive #483

SoCal Buddy Diving/Solo Diving

Secret Location: 54 68 65 72 65 20 69 73 20 61 20 66 69 65 6c 64 20 6f 66 20 64 65 62 72 69 73 20 4e 6f 72 74 68 20 57 65 73 74 20 6f 66 20 61 20 61 20 77 6f 6d 61 6e 20 6e 61 6d 65 64 20 50 61 6c 61 77 61 6e 2e, Redondo Beach, CA, USA

In With: 2900 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 112 feet
Waves: Pretty flat
Visibility: 10 feet
Water Temperature: 57 degrees
Air Temperature: 69 degrees
Total Bottom Time: 20 minutes, or so

Visibility sucked; I couldn’t see further than ten feet, and it was silty.

There was some cool structure and a few bugs.

I grabbed a couple, but they were all short; I missed a few legal bugs.

At 110 feet, I didn’t have that much time before going into deco.

I had no idea where the anchor chain was, and didn’t want to get swept away by a potential current.

I slowly went to the surface without a safety stop.

I surfaced close to the boat and started to swim to the anchor chain.

“Where are you going?” the Captain yelled.

“I’m going back down for the safety stop I missed,” I said.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

I went back down the chain and hung out for a few minutes at 20 feet.

I made it back onto the boat.

I was sure someone was going to come back with their limit; I must have just went to the wrong spot.

As divers returned, their bags were empty.

Roger was lucky enough to catch one bug.

Donna and Chis just went to the wreck, Roger caught one, Mean Bob and I got skunked.

Now, we were waiting for Mirek, who was on a rebreather, in a dry suit and being propelled by an electric scooter.

We were certain Mirek was going to limit; we waited.

After an hour and twenty minutes, we spotted a lighted bag in the far distance – we assumed it was Mirek.

The boat pulled anchor and we picked him up.

Forget checking if Mirek is OK, the first thing we checked was his game bag – and he had five lobsters.

All the technical gear Mirek wore radiated machismo.

I said to Mirek, “You got five lobsters, and we only have one lobster between all the rest of us.”

“That’s because you guys suck at lobster hunting,” Mirek said.

The neck seal on my dry suit was making my face turn red – Kathy the DM asked if I was OK and offered to give me Oxygen.

I appreciated the offer, but it was not necessary.

We debated on our second dive.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES ARE CONTAINED IN THIS POST.

I have upgraded to a GoPro Hero – yes, a used original GoPro Hero.

I figure anything that can get flooded or lost shouldn’t cost more than $100; however, the guy I bought the camera from lost the English instructions, and my Spanish, French and Italian are about as good as my Polish skills.

I need to figure out how the camera works, and the best way is from experience.

I arrived a little after 8 AM; the regulars decided the Point was a no-go, but the Cove was doable.

With the “Chipper and PSD diving on the same day means horrible visibility” curse dis-proven recently, Chipper said, “I know visibility will be great.”

We geared up and made and easy walk down and entrance off the Cove.

On the swim out, someone noticed something floating in the water.

We swam over to it.

I was hoping it was a bundle of drugs that fell off of a panga boat – I could sell it wholesale to someone in the ghetto and get new SCUBA equipment and we could debrief for free for the next three years.

Unfortunately, the thing floating in the water turned out to be a dead sea lion.

It didn’t appear to be tangled in anything, and didn’t seem too old – well half it’s face was missing, so who knows?

I said, “It looks like the lobsters here are going to eat well.”

It was decided that this was going to be an “every man for himself” dive.

We descended.

Logged SCUBA Dive #482

SoCal Buddy Diving primarily with Reverend Al

120 Reef, Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, USA

In With: 2900 psi
Out With: 700 psi
Max depth: 41 feet
Waves: Pretty flat, some small swells coming ashore
Visibility: 10-15 feet
Water Temperature: 58 degrees
Air Temperature: 72 degrees
Total Bottom Time: 52 minutes

I followed Reverend Al.

I turned on my GoPro and figured how to take picture bursts and video…

Visibility wasn’t that great, but it was a lot better than the swim out of The Cove.

Al bags a shell.

Al points out lobsters

Lobsters sunbathe in the open, knowing they are protected here.

We made an easy swim back and exit.

Upon coming to shore, we looked out to where we saw the dead sea lion.

The sun was warming it up and it looked twice the size as an hour earlier.

Reverend Al said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to shoot it and watch it explode?”

Ha!

That reminds me of when a town in Oregon blew up a dead whale in 1970 that ended in disaster – there’s a Youtube video on that here: Exploding Whale – Whale Of A Tale

At least the dead body we found was just a sea lion.

I had taken 189 pictures during and after the dive.

Some of them seemed random, and the last 40 were upside down – I need to some English instructions.

Traditional debriefing ensued.

Someone asked Chipper, “I thought you said visibility was going to be good?”

“I was just fucking with PSD,” Chipper responded.

I’m on a lobster boat next Saturday – stay tuned!